You are here

Search form

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV

To Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington

Alexander Pope, Of false taste; an epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington. Occasion'd by his publishing Palladio's designs of the baths, arches, theatres, &c. of ancient Rome, 3rd edn. (London, L. Gilliver, 1731 [i.e. 1732]). pam f Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto). A miscellany on taste, by Mr. Pope, &c. viz. I. Of taste in architecture, an epistle to the Earl of Burlington. With notes variorum, and a compleat key .... [and works by other authors] (London, Printed and sold by G. Lawton [etc.] 1732). B-11/350 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).

Notes

1] Published in December 1731, though completed in April (that is, before Epistle II and therefore placed before it in this text). The original title was An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington, Occasioned by his Publishing Palladio's Designs of the Bathes, Arches, and Theatre's of Ancient Rome. The half-title read Of Taste. In the second edition, it was changed to Of False Taste. In 1735 when it was included in the Works, it was changed again to Of the Use of Riches. Each of these titles calls attention to an aspect of the poem. The original title relates the poem to Burlington's 1730 volume of designs of ancient Roman buildings by the Renaissance architect, Palladio. Burlington and Pope shared similar views on architecture and gardening. Later Pope related the Epistle to his scheme for the projected fourth book of the Essay on Man (q.v.) and published it as one of the four epistles in the Epistles to Several Persons, popularly called the four Moral Essays.Pope's summary of Epistle IV is as follows. "The vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality. The abuse of the word taste, V.13. That the first principle and foundation, in this as in everything else, is good sense, V.40. The chief proof of it is to follow Nature, even in works of mere luxury and elegance. Instanced in architecture and gardening, where all must be adapted to the genius and use of the place, and the beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it, V.50. How man are disappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all; and the best examples and rules will but be perverted into something burdensome or ridiculous, V.65. A description of the false taste of magnificence; the first grand error of which is to imagine that greatness consists in the size and dimension, instead of the proportion and harmony of the whole, V.97, and the second, either in joining together parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the repetition of the same too frequently, v. 105 ff. A word or two of false taste in books, in music, in painting, even in preaching and prayer, and lastly in entertainments, V.133 ff. Yet Providence is justified in giving wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the poor and laborious part of mankind (recurring to what is laid down in the first book [the Essay on Man], Epistle II, and in the Epistle [to Bathurst] preceding this) v. 159 ff. What are the proper objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the expense of great men, and finally the great and public works which become a prince." 'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ, / To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:/Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste/His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?/Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats.' Back to Line

7] Topham. "[Pope] A gentleman famous for a judicious collection of drawings." Richard Topham (d. 1735), art collector. Back to Line

8] Pembroke: Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke (1656-1733), a Whig politician and a collector of statues, pictures, and coins. dirty Gods: Renaissance pseudo-antiques. Back to Line

9] Hearne: Thomas Hearne (1678-1735), mediaevalist, issued numerous small editions of middle English historical texts. Back to Line

10] Mead ... Sloone: "[Pope] Two eminent physicians; the one had an excellent library; the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity." Richard Mead (1673-1754) was physician to George II and his Queen, as well as Pope's physician in 1743. He had a library of 30,000 volumes. Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) was first physician to George II and President of the Royal College of Physicians, 1719-35. Back to Line

13] Virro: the point of the name is not known.13-14. planted: rhymes with "wanted." Back to Line

15] Visto: vista, the view at the ends of avenues of trees in Queen Anne's gardens. Here it suggests one who devotes himself to gardening and building. Back to Line

18] Ripley. "[Pope] This man was a carpenter, employed by a first minister [Sir Robert Walpole, who raised him to an architect, without any genius in art, and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public buildings, made him comptroller of the board of works." Back to Line

20] Bubo: see note to Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 299. George Bubb Dodington spent £140,000 completing a family mansion. Back to Line

22] magnifience: an Aristotelean virtue (see the Nichomean Ethics). Pope's essay is centrally concerned with this virtue, which deals with the expenditure of large sums of money. Back to Line

23] "[Pope] The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Designs of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio." Back to Line

36] Venetian door: "[Pope] a door or window, so called, from being much practiced at Venice by Palladio and others." Back to Line

37] Palladian: after Palladio (1518-80), the Italian architect, who published the most famous of the Renaissance texts on classical architecture, and whose style of building became very popular in the eighteenth century. It is well illustrated by the centre-piece of Chiswick House designed by Burlington and William Kent. Back to Line

46] "[Pope] Inigo Jones, the celebrated Architect, and M. Le Nôtre, the designer of the best gardens of France." Inigo Jones (d. 1652) was an English architect who used the Palladian style. André Le Nôtre (1613-1700) laid out the gardens at Versailles and Fontainebleau. Back to Line

47] Pope was a leader in the attack on the symmetrical style, favouring a more "natural" one where landscape and garden harmonized. His essays on gardening (cf. Guardian, 173) and his own garden at Twickenham were influential in the movement. Back to Line

55] Pope once told Spence: "All the rules of gardening are reducible to three heads:-- the contrasts, the management of surprises, and the concealment of bounds ... I have expressed them all in two verses; (after my manner, in very little compass) which are an imitation of Horace's Omne tulit punctum [De Arte Poetica, 343]." Back to Line

70] Stowe: "[Pope] the seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham in Buckinghamshire." Richard Temple (1675-1749), Viscount Cobham, was a Whig politician and soldier to whom Pope had addressed Moral Epistle I, On Man. At Cobham's family seat, Stowe, he entertained friends and erected monuments and temples to their memory in his elaborate landscape gardens. He was a practitioner of the new style of gardening and architecture. Pope said he esteemed Cobham "as well as any friend" he had. Back to Line

75] "[Pope] This was done in Hertfordshire, by a wealthy citizen, at the expense of above Żã5,000 by which means (merely to overlook a dead plain) he let in the north wind upon his house and parterre, which were before adorned and defended by beautiful woods." Back to Line

78] "[Pope] Dr. S. Clarke's busto placed by the Queen in the Hermitage, while the Dr. duly frequented the Court." Back to Line

79] Villario: probably adopted from "villa." A synthetic character. Back to Line

89] Sabinus: "Father Sabinus, planter of the vine" (Aeneid VIII, 178-79). The contemporary reference is not clear. Back to Line

95] "[Pope] The two extremes in parterres, which are equally faulty; a boundless green, large and naked as a field, or a flourished carpet, where the greatness and nobleness of the piece is lessened by being divided into too many parts, with scrolled works and beds, of which the examples are frequent." Back to Line

96] "[Pope] Touches upon the ill taste of those who are so fond of Evergreens (particularly Yews, which are the most tonsile) as to destroy the nobler Forest trees, to make way for such little ornaments as Pyramids of dark green continually repeated, not unlike a Funeral procession." Back to Line

99] Timon's villa: "[Pope] This description is intended to comprise the principles of a false taste of magnificence, and to exemplify what was said before, that nothing but good sense can attain it." Timon: a spendthrift Athenian patron of the arts who became a misanthropist after realizing the pointlessness of his activities (see Plutarch's life and Shakespeare's play). Back to Line

104] Brobdingnag: the kingdom of giants in Gulliver's Travels, II. 103-4. drought: rhymed with "thought." Back to Line

123] Amphitrite: a Nereid or sea-nymph and wife of Poscidon, the king of the sea gods. Back to Line

124] "[Pope] The two famous statues of the Gladiator pugnans and Gladiator motiens. Back to Line

130] "[Pope] The Approaches and Communications of house with garden, or of one part with another, ill judged and inconvenient." Back to Line

133] "[Pope] The false Taste in Books; a satire on the vanity in collecting them, more frequent in men of Fortune than the study to understand them.... some have carried it so far, as to cause the upper shelves to be filled with painted books of wood . . ." Back to Line

138] wood: disguised through fashioning and lettering to look like a book.Locke: John Locke (1632-1704), philosopher and author of the extremely influential Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Back to Line

143] "[Pope] The false taste in music, improper to the subjects, as of light airs in churches, often practiced by organists, etc." Back to Line

145] "[Pope] And in painting (from which even Italy is not free) of naked figures in churches, etc., which has obliged some popes to put draperies on some of those of the best masters." Back to Line

146] "[Pope] Verrio (Antonio) painted many ceilings, etc., at Windsor, Hampton Court, etc., and Laguerre at Blenheim Castle, and other places." Back to Line

148] Cf. Milton, Il Penseroso, line 166: "And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes." Cf. line 104 above. Back to Line

150] "[Pope] This is a fact; a reverend Dean of Peterborough, preaching at Court, threatened the sinner with punishment in `a place which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly'." Back to Line

153] "[Pope] Taxes the incongruity of Ornaments (though sometimes practised by the ancients) where an open mouth ejects the water into a fountain, or where the shocking images of serpents, etc., are introduced in Grottos or Buffets." Back to Line

155] "[Pope] The proud festivals of some men are here set forth to ridicule where pride destroys the ease, and formal regularity all the pleasurable enjoyment of the entertainment." Back to Line

160] Sancho's dread Doctor: "see Don Quixote, chap. xviii." In this section as Sancho is trying to eat a meal, the "doctor-magician" taking care of his health causes each dish to disappear just as Sancho is about to eat it. Back to Line

169] "[Pope] The moral of the whole, where Providence is justified in giving wealth to those that squander it in this manner. A bad taste employs more hands and diffuses expense more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book I, Ep. II, v. 230-7 [Essay on Man II, lines 230 ff.] and in the Epistle preceding this [Moral Essay III v. 161 etc." Back to Line

178] Bathurst: Allan Bathurst (1685-1775), a Tory M.P. and later peer, an enthusiastic landscape gardener, a man of worldly wisdom, and an intimate of Pope, Congreve, and Swift.Boyle: Lord Burlington, to whom the poem is dedicated. Back to Line

194] Vitruvius: Vitruvius Pollio (50-26 B.C.), Roman architect, whose ten-book treatise De Architectura dealt with the site, setting, and external decoration as well as the building itself. It became the most important classical reference work for neo-classicists after the Renaissance. Back to Line

195] "[Pope] The poet after having touched upon the proper objects of magnificence and expense in the private works of great men, comes to the great and public works which become a prince. This poem was published in the year 1732, when some of the new-built churches, by the act of Queen Anne, were ready to fall, being founded in boggy land (which is satirically alluded to in our author's imitation of Horace, Bk. II, Satire ii [line 119]. Shall half the new-built Churches round the fall); others were vilely executed through fraudulent cabals between undertakers, officers, etc. Dagenham breach had done very great mischiefs. Many of the Highways throughout England were hardly passable; and most of those which were repaired by Turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre, and infamously executed, even to the entrances of London itself. The proposal of building a Bridge at Westminster had been petitioned against and rejected; but in two years after the publication of this poem, an Act for building a bridge passed through both houses. After many debates in the committee, the execution was left to the carpenter above mentioned l. 18n who would have made it a wooden one; to which our author alludes in these lines; "Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile?/Should Ripley venture all the world would smile." See the notes on that place [To Augustus, note on line 186]." Back to Line